Southwest Airlines and its subsidiary AirTran Airways are eliminating three daily roundtrips between Louisville and Atlanta, effective June 8.

Trish Burke, spokeswoman for the Louisville Regional Airport Authority, said the service didn’t generate enough traffic to be profitable.

Burke released a statement that said the service cut “did not come as a surprise, because despite generous fare sales, modifying their schedule to better serve business travelers and introducing smaller AirTran aircraft, the airline was unable to gain the necessary ridership to make the route profitable.

“Southwest will continue to operate the current three daily departures until June 8, and tickets will be on sale for all flights up to that date.”

Southwest began the Louisville-Atlanta service in August 2012.

The scheduled flights were:

•
6 a.m. departure, Southwest

•
10:30 a.m. departure, AirTran

•
8 p.m. departure, AirTran

•
9:55 a.m. arrival, AirTran

•
6:05 p.m. arrival, AirTran

•
11:35 p.m. arrival, Southwest

Burke noted that Delta Air Lines will continue to operate eight, nonstop daily flights between Louisville International Airport and Atlanta.

Southwest recently also discontinued twice-daily flights between Louisville and St. Louis, an action that the airline attributed to “tweaking” its service nationwide, primarily on flights of 400 miles or less that were proving expensive to operate.

Reporter Sheldon S. Shafer can be reached at (502) 582-7089. Follow him on Twitter at @sheldonshafer.